From character to character, the brutal kills range from ripping out spines to slicing the opponents straight in half to chopping off foe's arms. They were all just obeying the thunderous voice rumbling, "Finish him!" This is Mortal Kombat – one of, if not the, most popular fighting game franchises ever created. At its conception in 1992, it was hit with a hard wall of controversy for its heavy use of gore and the general fear it would influence children to reenact these so-called “fatalities” in real life. Ever since the 1970s, man was finally able to interact with the screen, creating a universe written in ones and zeros. However, does the screen speak back to us, and cause effects outside of the console? Though video games have widely been blamed by the media for motivating violence, they do not in fact cause violence, but instead serve as just another media platform under scrutiny as many mediums before them. Games have miniscule, possibly even absent, scientific evidence for causing violence. Even though games do cause some aggression in laboratory studies, it is the same aggression that comes with any other competition, such as sports (Jayson). Whether the game in question is a frustrating Mario level or a difficult Grand Theft Auto mission, the aggression is not caused by the content. This is also a case of causation vs. correlation – do violent games cause violent people, or do violent people just choose violent games? Certainly, it’s the latter. If an individual is already obsessed with, say, rape, he or she will pursue media on that subject. In reality, the rate of school shootings has actually dropped since 1994, while the popularity of video games has exploded (Gerdes). Also, the results inside a laboratory do not alwa... ... middle of paper ... .... Print. "Seung-Hui Cho Biography." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 15 Sept. 2013. Simpson, Kevin, and Jason Blevins. "Did Harris Preview Massacre on 'Doom?"" The Denver Post Online. Denver Post, 4 May 1999. Web. 15 Sept. 2013. Stashower, David. "On First Looking into Chapman's Holden: Speculations on a Murder." The American Scholar:. Phi Beta Kappa, n.d. Web. 06 Oct. 2013. Steinberg, Michelle, and Anton Chaitkin. "Virginia Tech Killer Was Another Video-Game Fanatic." Virginia Tech Killer Was Another Video-Game Fanatic. Executive Intelligence Review, 27 Apr. 2007. Web. 15 Sept. 2013. "Video Game Violence: Why do we Like it, and what's it Doing to Us?" NPR All Things Considered (2013): n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 29 Aug. 2013. "Violent Video Games and Young People." Harvard Mental Health Letter (2010): n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 29 Aug. 2013.
Dill, Karen E. and Dill, Jody C. “Video Game Violence: A Review of the Empirical
Jayson, Sharon. “Video Games Tied to Aggression.” USA Today. USA Today, 1 March 2010. Web. 24 October 2011.
"Do Violent Video Games Cause Behavior Problems?" The Premier Online Debate Website. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Jan. 2014.
psychcentral.com. 15 Nov 2013. “Violent video games are not so bad when players cooperate”. youthsciencejournal.com. 10 Dec 2013. “Growing Up With Media: Exposure to violent material”.
Children today are exposed to more graphic violence in video games compared to any past generations. This is because the media finds that making a profit, surpasses the lives of the adolescents that play these games. However, over time two sets of views formed from the violence in video games. James D. Sauer, is a graduate of the School of Physiology. In his article, “Violent Video Games: The Effects of Narrative Context and Reward Structure on In-Game and Postgame Aggression,” Sauer, describes how adolescents gain forms of aggression and violence after playing certain games.
In the book “Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents: Theory, Research, and Public Policy,” the authors relay the general information concerning the history of violence in video games as well as the beginning of the issue of violence in video games (Anderson, Gentile, and Buckley 2007). They state that it was “during the 1990s that violent games truly
Lately there have been increasing amounts of people that say that violent video games are causing a number violent actions. To some extent this is true, but there are also studies that say games help people release their aggression in an appropriate way. I would tend to agree with the later.
In today’s society, highly addicting video games involving strong violence and language, explicit sexuality and crime often lead to inappropriate behaviors. Role playing games or RPGs allow us to step into a virtual world, cutting ourselves off from worldly distractions. Nowadays, the age range for people who play these extremely graphic games are anywhere from six to eighteen and are surprisingly hazardous to young children’s health. A study gave a group of players playing a violent video game the chance to blast a painful sound into their opponent's ear in order to get the upper advantage. They also gave another group playing non violent games, the same opportunity. The study showed that overall the gamers playing violent video games were more prone to inflict more pain on their enemies, unlike the other group who inflicted considerably less pain. Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D who did this study agrees, “violent video games desensitize players to violence, and makes them more violent in real life" (McGonigal). Young adults are exposed to these terrifying images, harming their mental health. In recent events, a young eight year old boy shot his grandmother after playing Grand Theft Auto. This game is the epitome of why young people should not be playing these games. It is comprised of murder, drug and alcohol abuse, criminal behavior, violence and general disrespect for women, and foul language. In summary, young people should not be playing these games in order to save their mental health. Furthermore, television contributes to desensitizing society with it’s ...
Jaccarino, Mike. “’Training Simulation:’ Mass Killers Often Share Obsession with Violent Video Games.” Fox News. FOX News Network. 12 September 2013. Web. 14 May 2014.
The allegation that videogames cause violent behavior in children has been present as long as videogames themselves. Some researchers said that the Sandy Hook shooter, Adam Lanza, was one intense gamer. “Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech Shooter was seen by his roomates as odd because he never joined them in video games.”(Beresin) This debate will continue to go on in this country as long as there are horrific crimes that occur. There is much written in the research regarding this issue, and many differing views. The research that is presented in the next few paragraphs supports the theory that it is not the graphic video games that produce aggressive behavior, but other factors in a child’s life that create violent actions.
Although violent video games are thought to encourage real world violence, they actually help to prevent it. I am focusing on violent video games and how they affect juveniles because I feel that this issue needs to be looked at in the criminal justice community. It is an unnecessary distraction to blame the actions of a disturbed youth on a form of entertainment that has been used by millions of people without incident. A review article published in The Psychiatric Quarterly found that many studies which claim to indicate an increase in aggression due to video games are, in fact, biased! Once the bias is taken into account, the studies no longer find any correlation between youths who play violent video games and youths who demonstrate aggression and violent behavior.
Most of the time violence is considered as the worst when it comes to the bad effects of video games. A scientific survey (Anderson & Bushman, 2001) has found a connection between aggressive behaviors and playing violent games where more the children play violent games, more tend be aggressive in behavior. Not only that but also they are more likely to have aggressive feelings and thoughts plus diminished aiding. It is said that the impact of playing violent games in children is compounded by the intuitive/interactive nature of the games. Children are remunerated for being more vicious or violent, most of the time in many games. The demonstration of violence is carried out over and again and the player is in control of the violence who encounters the brutality such as killing/stabbing in his own eyes. This first-hand experience in violence, being rewarded for it and the iteration of this process are compelling conditions for learning and developing violent behavior.
middle of paper ... ... The Effects of Violent Video Game Habits on Adolescent Hostility, Aggressive Behaviors, and School Performance. Journal of Adolescence, 27. http://www.sciencedirect.com
“Contrary to the claims that violent video games are linked to aggressive assaults and homicides, no evidence was found to suggest that this medium was a major (or minor) contributing cause of violence in the United States.” (Markey, 290)
Leung, R. (2009, February 11). Can a video game lead to murder?. Retrieved from http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-702599.html